Pixel Worlds is a free to play online MMO social sandbox indie game, developed and published by a small indie game studio Kukouri Mobile Entertainment from Finland. The game won the awards of “Best Indie Game Developer ” (Global Mobile Game Awards 2019) and “People’s choice award” (Game Connection Paris 2018). As the indie game studio consist of around 5 ~ 8 people when the game was first developed, it is surprising how a small studio is able to create, publish and manage an MMO when it is a norm now where the majority of the Mobile MMO game on mobile have a separate developer and publisher.

Official Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PixelWorldsGame

Steam Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/636040/Pixel_Worlds_MMO_Sandbox/

Pixel World is a social sandbox game with many different features. These include dungeons, farm, trade, PVP, parkour, jet race, fishing, mining, battle cards, building your world and many more. The content that attracts me the most in this game is the parkour/platformer aspect of the game. It provides me with a sense of nostalgia as a 2d platformer game. There is surprising lots(more than a thousand) of fun and unique parkour world created by players to explore. The following shows a few of the parkour you can enjoy in the game.

Elements Tetrad

• Mechanics – Pixel world is a 2D side-scrolling, MMO social sandbox game. As a sandbox game, there is numerous amount of different mechanics allowing the user to explore. The following is the core mechanics of the game.
  • User-generated content – User can build their world. Each world has a buildable size of 80 x 57 blocks. The user can build various types of world. The type of world includes parkour, trading, farming, hangout, story, pixel arts, PVP, fishing and clan world.
  • Dynamic worlds – are farmable contents developed by developers. The majority of these contents involve procedurally generated maps. There are 3 procedurally generated dungeons (Netherworld, Mine, Secret Base) and 2 procedurally generated race/platformers (The Black Tower and Jet Race).
  • Farming – The majority of the resource obtainable in the game require farming. Unlike other sandbox games where the player can design their level without any constraint, building worlds in pixel world require the player to obtain the building block by themself.

• Aesthetics
  • Pixel World is done entirely in 2D, with high-quality pixel art. The following is an interesting video showing how the developer derived the current character art after multiple iterations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmVVZ7TUKsY
  • As the game is inspired by retro 2d games such as sonic the hedgehog, the music used in the game is relatively retro, giving a classic feel to the game(sample soundtrack).
  • The game provides building blocks, allowing the player to create their world. The following is the screenshot of the world recently created by players, showing the different types of aesthetics the user can create using the given blocks. More world showcased by players here: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/pwwotw/?hl=en

• Technology
  • The game is developed in the Unity engine. It is cross-platform across PC(steams), IOS, and Android. As such, the user interface is designed such that it works both on mobile and PC.
  • As a 2D game, it is battery friendly as a mobile game because of has low system requirements.
• Story
  • As a sandbox MMO, there is little (some quest) to no storyline. Since the game provides freedom to the user to do whatever they want in the game, the storyline is not important.

Len# 52: The Lens of Economy

There is two forms of currency in the game, Gem(Premium, Untradeable) and Bytes(tradeable). Both currencies are obtainable in-game. As a sandbox MMORPG, the economy in the game is fully controlled by the players. Trading is a huge aspect of the game as that is where the materials required to build a world came from.

One of the key elements that keep the game economy going is seasonal limited-time items. As these items will no longer appear in the future, collecting these rare items become one of the goals of some players. There is 6 seasonal event in the game every year and all these events provide some limited-time item that appears only once.

The developer has been consistently updating the game. There is a minor update every month or two and two major updates every year, providing new content for the player to consume. The regular update kept the economy of the game flowing as new items flooded into the market regularly.

Lens# 37: The Len of Fairness

The lens of fairness is often related to the lens of the economy in a free to play MMORPG. In a free to play MMORPG, it is very often that it is pay to win. Either by having a cash-only weapon or pay/time walled content/bonus. In Pixel World, the only currency that the user can buy is Gems, and Gem is also obtainable inside the game without any daily or weekly cap. This also means that players can obtain all items in the game without paying a single cent, as long as they put in a sufficient amount of effort. This mean player will not feel disadvantage for not paying.

Len# 74: The Lens of Obstacle

Unlike other common sandbox games where the player can design their level without any constraint, building worlds in pixel world require the player to obtain the building block by themself. Furthermore, blocks placed in the world will not be retrievable. The player has to make careful consideration before placing their block, especially the rarer one that is hard to come by. The player will have to go through the effort of collecting different materials required to build a beautiful world. As there is a cost in building a world, the user will spend more time considering what they will be building.

Len# 32: The Lens of Goal

The player can have many different goals in the game. So, what is the goal of a designer who went through the painstaking effort of collecting the blocks and building a beautiful world? Those who spent lots of effort into building a world often aim for the World of the Week (WOTW).

WOTW is a system that exists in many sandbox MMO games, where every week, the developer will select the best world and add it to the WOTW world chart, where the world will be permanently showcased in the game. The developer also makes it easy for the player to participate in the WOTW selection by using Instagram. The user will simply have to take a screenshot of their world post it on Instagram using the tag #PWWOTW. Pixel world currently has over 250 WOTW for new users to explore.

Players who won the world of a week will receive a trophy with their player name engraved on it. Collecting the WOTW trophy become the goal of many players in the game as a form of honour. Some players aim for the WOTW as they will be able to sell their world at a higher price.

The WOTW system is the source of many new high-quality worlds created in the game every week, giving players an endless amount of fun world to explore(as long as players aiming for the WOTW exist).

Len# 98: The Lens of Community

Pixel World is created as a social game, as such, having a good community is crucial to the game success. The game studios had hired a community manager who also works as a game developer. The community manager does a weekly live stream on the game, where players can communicate with the developer themself. During the live stream, there will be Q&A, Give-Away, Update leak, and visiting potential WOTW suggested by the viewer. Having a game developer does live-stream frequency allows players to feel close to the game where they will be able to interact with the developer directly.

As an indie studio, it is hard for them to be responsive to grieving and other in-game abuse. As such, the game studio has decided to choose moderators from the veteran players in-game. (there is a surprising number of them who is willing to help moderate the game free of charge considering one of the requirement is to be at least 16 year old) These moderators span from a different timezone, allowing them to respond to in-game abuse quickly. While it is impossible to catch all the in-game abuse in real-time, the report system in the game is pretty effective as the majority of the reported player (with evidence) ended up getting banned. Repeated offences will end up with a longer ban sentence.

The community in the game is well managed. While the game is not popular, it has maintained a constant player-base throughout its lifespan. This can be seen through the steam chart.

Conclusion

The game has provided me with a sense of nostalgia as I used to play retro 2D platformer. Different from other platformer games, this game revolves around the community. There are new worlds to explore weekly. Loitering around and socializing with other players is also a key aspect. Building of a world is often not done alone but with clans mate or friends you found in the game. One of the surprise factors of the game is its player demographics. There are plenty of players in their late 20s, 30s or 40s who are playing this game out of reminiscing of the retro game they had used to play in the game.